Beyond Speech Act Theory - Hancher Review of Pratt

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Beyond a Speech-Act Theory of Literary Discourse

Toward a Speech Act Theory of Literary Discourse by Mary Louise PrattReview by: Michael HancherMLN, Vol. 92, No. 5, Compartive Literature (Dec., 1977), pp. 1081-1098Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2906897 .

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BEYOND A SPEECH-ACTTHEORY OFLITERARY DISCOURSE m MICHAELHANCHER )Mary Louise Pratt,Toward a Speech Act Theory fLiteraryDis-course (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977), 236pages.

It isnow fifteen ears inceHarvardUniversityress publishedJ.L. Austin'sWilliamJamesLecturesfor 1955, How todoThingswithWords.Austin's nalysis f anguage use had long been an importantinfluence on other philosophers of language, and publicationgreatly xtended that nfluence, specially n theneighboring ieldsof linguistics nd social anthropology. Much of the philosophicaland linguistic iteraturehas been listedbyEaton [1974] and Ver-schueren 1976]. For sociologicaland anthropologicalperspectivessee Turner [1974] and Hymes 1971, 1972]). Recently evelopmen-talpsychologists avegained fromAustin's nsights,nd theynturnhavebegun togatherevidencecorroboratingmanyof theconceptsbasic tospeech-act heory Bates [1976]; Bruner [1975, 1976]; Gar-vey 1975]). Some interestingpplicationshave been made in legaltheoryTwiningand Miers 1976]), and even intheology Martinich[1975]). Now, aterperhaps thanmighthavebeen expected,there sthefirst ook-length tudyofthe implications f Austin's deas forliteraryriticism, oward Speech f iteraryiscourse,yMaryLouisePratt Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1977).During the last decade manyscattered ssayshave appeared onthis ubject, everal of whichPratt akes nto account. And she doesnotrestrict erself o Austin's peech-act heory, ven as refinedbySearle (1969), but draws upon the resultsof recent research insociolinguisticse.g., Labov [1972]), and makesuse of other modelsin thephilosophy f anguage,especiallyGrice's 1967]. Still,Austinis theoriginal fnottheonlybegetter f this ineof nquiry, nd thephrase "speech-act heory"speculiarly ssociatedwithhis work ndSearle's. It seemsfair, hen, oaddressthisbook as thefirst ubstan-

MLN 92 (1977) 1081-1098Copyright 1977 byThe JohnsHopkinsUniversityressAllrights freproduction n anyform eserved.

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1082 ESSAY/REVIEWStial resultin literary tudyof a philosophyof language thathasalreadyproven to be a powerful xplanatorydevice inotherfields.By itsverytitle hisbook arouses greatexpectations.They are bound to be disappointed.Partofthe blame forthis sPratt's, orshe so dilutes theAustin-Searle heory hatmuchof itspower is lost. But probably a more rigorous application of thetheorywould also disappoint,because of a mismatch etweenwhatthe theorycan do and what literary riticsrequire. Even so, thisbook deserves a large audience and careful attention. t is boththoughtful nd thought-provoking. any ofPratt's rguments repersuasive, nd otherscall forthereconsideration f old and basicissues in literaryheory.They are worthreviewing n some detail.Prattbegins by confronting nd rejecting the traditionalfor-malistclaimthatthere s some differencen kindbetweenthelan-guage of literature nd the language of the practicalworld. Aftershowinghow the consequent divorce of poetics fromlinguisticsimproverished oth as othershave shownbefore; e.g.,Fish 1973]),she turns o a more promisingmodel. That model is the "narrativesyntax" hatWilliamLabov foundunderlying hemanypersonal-experiencenarratives oldtohimand tohiscollaborators yvariousHarlem informants Labov [1972]).Labov found thatthese"real-life" arratives ll followed consis-tentpatternor "syntax" omprising uch elements some of themoptional) as abstract,rientation,omplicatingction, valuation, esultor resolution, nd coda, all shaped according to the speaker'sdynamic ense of the context n whichhe mustengage (and evade)his audience's attention.Pratt notes thatmost of these rhetoricalfeaturesof "naturalnarrative"have counterparts n "literary" ic-tion. From this she draws two conclusions: (1) The structure f"literature" enerallyhas a lotmore in commonwith hestructureof ordinarydiscoursethan formalism llows us to notice. (2) Weshould followLabov's example, and pay more attention o the de-termining oles of addresser,addressee, and context-despite ourhighlydeveloped inhibitions gainstrecognizing heoperationsof"intention, erception, nd value" in humandiscourse. "The over-ridingtendency to disguise" such notionsby projecting them di-rectly nto the text tself, he says,

has a conspicuoustylisticffectn almost ll formalistnd struc-turalistt ritings.heyare a grammarian'soldmine f agentlessShe means arly tructuralist;utherremarksanbegiven wider pplication.



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M L N 1083passives, tatives,eflexives,nd attributives,ll with onspicuouslynonhuman ubjects.... theview f poetic anguage mplied y thestyle]s as impoverisheds the view f ordinaryanguage ying e-hind it].... The poetic ext,which formstself"nd "orientstself"accordingo ts wn ntentionsnd values, s every it s mechanistic,as divorced rom hereality f human ommunication,s the ordi-narv"utterance hat transmits erelynformationbout the out-sideworld." 74-5)With a strengthenedrespect for the real world of language,whichincludes, in contexts, peakers and audiences, writers ndreaders, Pratt urns n her third hapter to a sophisticatedmodel ofthatworld,the Austin-Searle heoryof speech acts.The outline ofthat theorywhich followshere emphasizes some aspects thatPrattneglects n her own account.Austin,reacting gainst the early modern philosophical habitofputtinghard sentences ike 1) to testsfor truth-value r verifiabil-ity, roposed that ome sentencesthatseem to fail thetest, ike 2),should not simplybe labelled "nonsense."

(1) God iseverywhere.(2) I bid three pades.He furtherproposed that it was not a sentence qua sentencethatwas interesting, ot some timeless unchanging Platonic type, butrather ts use in certainsituations;forexample, (2) as utteredatbridge, bya playerwhose turn tis to bid.These two proposals taken togetheryielded a tentativedistinc-tion between utterances that made statements, constativeutter-ances," responsiveto some kindof truth est, nd other utterancesthat did not assert anything bout a state of affairs,but ratherbroughta new state of affairs ntobeing. For example:

(3) Welcome.(4) Shutthedoor.(5) I namethis hiptheQueen lizabeth.(6) I promise owrite.This kindAustincalled "performative tterances,"because in ut-teringthem in an appropriate context a speaker would actuallyaccomplish something. Though not directlyresponsiveto truthtests howwould one verifyhe bare truth f[2], or [4]?) performa-tiveutterances re subjecttootherkindsof conditions fthey re to"make sense" and do theworkthattheyare supposed to do. Forexample, there would be somethingodd about my uttering 2)duringa poker game.



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1084 ESSAY/REVIEWSAustin listed six generalizations plus some others,even moregeneral) thatmust hold if a performativeutterance is to avoidbeing "unhappy" or "infelicitous"; hese have since been dubbed"felicityonditions."A.1. Theremust xist conventional,ituatedinguisticrocedurefor he correct erformancef theperformativetterancenquestion.A.2. "Theparticularersons nd circumstancesna given ase mustbe appropriateor he nvocation f theparticular rocedureinvoked."B. 1. "Theproceduremust e executed y llparticipantsorrectly,"and ...B.2.... "completely."F.1. Ifthe incerityf anyparticipant attersothekind f act nquestion, emust e sincere.F.2. The participants ust ehave ppropriatelyfter hefact.

A failure in any of the firstfour cases will void the attemptedperformative. failure n eitherofthe ast twocaseswillrendertheperformative tterancedefective, ut notfatally; t willamount toan abuse of theprocedure.GraduallyAustincame to recognizethat the constative/perfor-mativedistinctionwas not absolute. For one thing, ny happy per-formative tterancewill mply ruestatements bout the contextofthe utterance. f I reallydo bid threespades that mpliesthat tistrue that tis thenmyturn to bid.Conversely thoughAustin does not make quite so much of thispoint) constatives re themselvessubject to felicity onditionsofsorts. There would be somethingodd about my asserting, n theabsence of any specific vidence,thatBertLance isrunning feverof 102.30 F., or is thinking f theTaj Mahal. The "circumstances"would be "inappropriate"forme to make such an assertion-evenif,bysome luckycoincidence, t ust happened to be true.To acknowledgethis imilarity etweenconstative nd performa-tive speech acts,Austin oined them both in the notion of an il-locutionaryct; that is, an act performed n the properlysituatedutteringof a given locution.The act of uttering he locution hecalled a locutionaryct,and the act ofinducingcontingent ffects ecalled a perlocutionaryct. These acts are essentially imultaneous;they mount to threeaspectsof thesame action. The central spectis the illocutionaryact-which displaces the "sentence" as thecenterof philosophical nterest.



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M L N 1085Austin estimated hatthere were thousands of different inds ofillocutionary cts, and he made a first ffort t classifying hem.

Recently earle (1975a, 1975b) has published a more rigorousclas-sification,which Prattsummarizes:1. representatives:llocutionaryctsthatundertake o representstate faffairs, hether ast,present, uture,rhypothetical;.g.,stating, laiming, ypothesizing,escribing, redicting,elling,n-sisting,uggesting,rswearinghat omethingsthecase.2. directives:llocutionaryctsdesigned ogetthe ddressee odosomething; .g., requesting,ommanding, leading, nviting,ar-ing.3. commissives:llocutionarycts hat ommit he peaker o doingsomething;.g., promising,hreatening,owing.4. expressives:llocutionarycts that expressonlythe speaker'spsychologicaltate; .g., congratulating,hanking, eploring,on-doling,welcoming.5. declarations:llocutionaryctsthatbring boutthe state f af-fairs hey efer o; e.g., blessing, iring, aptizing, idding, assingsentence.80-81)

Note that the first lass, representatives,mounts to the old andtroublesomeclass, constatives.In SpeechActs 1969) Searle refined Austin's account of felicityconditions,and characterized them by drawing a distinction e-tweentwokindsofrulesgoverninghumanbehavior, egulativeulesand constitutiveules. Regulativerules regulate a pre-existingctiv-ity, n activity hose existence s logically ndependent f the rules."The rule that the bride's family its on the leftand the groom'son the right s a rule of this type; theycould rest their feet aseffectively,nd the couple would be married ust as effectively,whethertheyobserved the rule or not. But the rule thatneitherbridenor groom can be married lready still), s a different indofrule. If it be broken, the second "marriage" s void, no marriageatall. "Constitutive ules constituteand also regulate)an activityheexistence of which is logically dependent on the rules" (Searle[1969], 34).Now theAustin-Searle elicityonditions n illocutionaryctsareconstitutiveules,notregulative ules. n Searle's strict ersiontheyare both "necessaryand sufficient" o the actual performanceofthe llocutionary ct Searle [1965], 231; [1969], 54). But Pratt reatsthem as iftheyweremerelyregulative.This allowsherto associatethemwith arious genre"rules" of iterature,whichbyand largeareregulative,notconstitutive.What she gains in breadthshe loses inprecision, t the pointin the theorywhere itmost matters.



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1086 ESSAY/REVIEWS"Speech acts,"she says, "like ll behavior,re correctly r felici-tously performedonly if certain conditionsobtain" (81; my em-phasis). But the point s that speech acts are not"like all behavior";they re only ike acts constituted ythe rulesunderwhichthey reperformed.This is more than a casual slip. For Prattnext introducestheterm"appropriatenesscondition"as a synonym nd replacementfor "felicity ondition."And in her hands the notion of "appro-priateness"has all theelasticityf the classicalnotionof"decorum."It covers many nteresting ases, but only n a regulativeway.2Much like the ancient rhetoricians,Pratthopes to distinguishgenres ofdiscourse n terms f contrastingappropriateness ondi-tions." For example, she would distinguishthe rules of naturalnarrative rom he rulesof courtroom-testimonyarrativeby con-trastingthe different"appropriateness conditions" governingeach: in the first ase it s appropriatefor the narrator o commentevaluatively n whathe reports; in the second case it is not. Butneitherof theserules is constitutive; ither can be brokenwithout

necessarilyvoidingthe narrative ct. (A judge mighthave such acomment stricken rom the trialrecord,but not necessarily.) t isboth customary nd appropriate to wear dark clothesto funeralsand light lotheson the tennis ourt,butneither ustom s essentialto the different ocial events and language games thattake placethere. All such rules of decorum are beyond the limited compe-tence (in both senses) of speech-acttheory.Another nstance:Fairy ales nd fables llowfor upernaturalvents ndobjects uthaverathertrict ules boutwhatkinds f supernaturalventsmayoccur and howtheymaycomeabout. t is very ikely hattheseconventions,oo,can be formulateds appropriatenessonditions.(86)

2 Pratt eemstotakethe term nd conceptappropriatenessonditionromTraugott(1973); she in turn seems to be influencedbyHymes (1971), who applies the termappropriatenesso much more than the necessary-and-sufficient onditions ofspeech-acttheory.Grice [1967], 1) uses thephraseapplicabilitylappropriateness-conditionn a technicalsense thatoverlapscertainof Austin'sfelicity onditions.Gricegoes on to criticizesome, thoughnotall, philosophicalexplanationsthatdepend upon the notion. Seebelow.)And of course Austin'ssecond felicity onditionrequiresthat"appropriateper-sons" be in the"appropriatecircumstances." ut theappropriateness nvolvedthereis constitutive, ot regulative.



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M L N 1087If "appropriatenessconditions" nvolveonly "ratherstrict ules,"theyfallfar hort f the"necessary nd sufficientonditions" f theAustin-Searlemodel forthe descriptionof speech acts.Perhapsthe constitutive/regulativeistinctions not beyondcriti-cism see, forexample,Stampe [1975], Hirsch[1976]). But itneedsto be dealt with, ne wayor another,not simply gnored.3Prattdilutesthetheory o enlarge its scope in anotherway.Thefact hat llocutionaryctstendto be onlyone sentence ong (Searle[1969], 25) is probably ound to give a literary ritic laustrophobia.The fewclearexceptions re notvery iberating.Austin [1962], 36)impliesthat peechacts nvolving woormore participantsbetting,marrying-contracts enerally)will nvolvetwo or more sentences.Garvey (1975) reportsthat in conversationthe "domain" of oneillocutionary ct mayextendover severalsentences, s thepartici-pants clarifythe nature and rightnessof the speech act beingnegotiated.But literary riticshuntbiggergame. Therefore Prattwould have "appropriateness onditions" pply"at the levelofdis-course" to "multisentenceutterancesthathave a single point orpurpose" (85).

Now theremaybe somespecialcases in which trict elicityondi-tionsdo governat the level of discourse. For example, extensivelegal directivese.g., wills, tatutes)will be void for nfelicityf "ut-tered" by an inappropriate person or in inappropriate cir-cumstances.But I can't imagine any strict elicity onditionsthatwill define genericdiscourseas simpleas a letter o the editoror anewspapereditorial, etalone the more"literary" enresthatPratthas in mind. And yet she is bold enough to tryto specifythe"appropriatenessconditions"on the largestand mosttreacherousliterary enre of all, the genre of "literature" tself.She recognizesthat Ohmann (1971a) has already made such aneffort:he holds that iteraryworks are composed of "mimetic" rmake-believe speech acts, not real ones with real illocutionaryforce.So Beardsley (1970),61] proposedthat poems"thecompleximitation f a compoundillocutionaryct"; and Smith (1971), 271]that a poem is "a fictiveutterance"-"the speaking, addressing,expressingand alluding" thatseem to take place in a poem "arethemselves ictive erbalacts.")The flaw n this ommonmaneuver

3 Fish [1976], 1003-4,1008) faults oth ser (1975) and Ohmann (1971b) forsimi-lar collapsingsof the constitutive/regulativeistinction.



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1088 ESSAY/REVIEWSis the reduction of the category iteratureor poetry) o the singlecategoryoffiction.Another and broader approach is needed.So Prattdirects our attention o a broad view of literature s asocial institution.n a fascinatingectionon the penaltiesof "beingan Audience," she notes thatthesolitary eaderof a publishedtext,preciselyikea memberof anyvoluntary ollective udience oforaldiscourse,takes on the role of a member of the Audience at somecost. That is, he givesup the right to speak; a right thathe hasbeen accustomedto value and to exercise n the ordinary onversa-tionofeverydayife,where thas theprotection f all kindsoftacitrules governing turn-taking.4 e naturallyexpects to get some-thingvaluable in returnfor temporarily elinquisingthat right.Anyvoluntarymemberof any Audience will therefore it n udg-ment on the proceedings,monitoring personal profitand loss.Self-interestmakes a demandingcritic ut ofeverymember oftheAudience-including every reader of a workof literature.Pratt argues that the reader's demands and expectationsarefurther eightened byhisknowledge of other aspectsof the socialcontextofliterature.He knowsthatbyconvention heliterary exthas been both carefully "pre-pared" by the author, and "pre-selected"by publishers,reviewers, ollege professors, nd thelike,to maximize the chances that it won't be a waste of the reader'stimeand rights.5 his means, among otherthings, hattheconceptof literature s necessarily honorific," nd not value-free 122-3).But Prattherselfnotes that theconventions f pre-paration ndselectiondo not uniquely define "literature";somethingmore isneeded to exclude publishedworks hatpass thesetestsbut still renotparticularlyliterary" 120). (Like her own book, for example,

4 Note that the rules governing urn-takingre regulative,not constitutive. rattcalls them "appropriatenessconditions" 1 13).5 Sometimes the word is "pre-paration," ometimessimply"preparation."Thisdifference, pparentlyunmotivated, eems to invite deconstruction.The systemincludes to keep to English lone) PREPARE, PARE, PARADE, PARRY, and PAR-ENT.Pratt'snotion that iteratures special because pre-selectedamounts to a radical

revision of an old distinctionbetween literature nd folkloredrawn by RomanJakobsonand PeterBogatyrev [1931], 91):A folklorework sonlythatwhich s been sanctioned nd adopted by a given communi-ty.Preliminaryensorshipythecommunitys a prerequisiteor he existencef afolklore ork.Allthose roductsf ndividualreativityhichre denied ocializationby he ommunityo notbecome acts ffolklore:hey re condemnedo obliteration.On the ther and, iteraryorks ot dopted y he ommunityontinueoexist ndmay e sanctionedy ucceeding enerations...



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M L N 1089or thisreview.) Later she adds another requirement,derived fromLabov: "tellability,"r remarkableness 152). But her book, if notthisreview, s "tellable" n itsway; it holds and rewardsone's atten-tion; but it is not exactly a "literarywork"; so the notion is notsufficiento close out the concept of "literature."And Pratt hintsthat"tellability"s not a necessaryriterion ither 136). In the end,anyone hoping that the "appropriateness conditions" associatedwith iteraturewillamount to anything ike a definition f thecon-cept, is bound to be disappointed. As before, this s an inevitableresult of the factthat the "conditions"and "conventional proce-dures" (120) thatPratt akes nto accountare loose, merelyregula-tive and customary.Contrast Searle's analysisof the constitutivefelicityonditionson promising,whichdoes amountto a definitionof the concept Searle [1969],57-64). An additionalproblem xists fmost of themajor genres are essentially open" and therefore lu-siveconcepts, not at all subject to strict efinition.)Prattnext turns o Paul Grice's WilliamJames ectures, ogicandConversation,hichhave proved an increasinglynfluentialworkofordinary-languagephilosophy,though so far mostlyunpublished(Grice [1967, 1975]). She applies his argumentto make some veryinteresting uggestions bout fiction nd literary nterpretation.Grice tries ooutlinea general theory fconversationalanguageuse, meant to be partof an even more general accountof "rationalbehavior," so as to block the common assumptionthatthe formaldevices of logical theorydiffer n meaning fromtheirordinary-language counterparts not, nd, or, f . . then, tc.)-a differenceusually counted against the latter.He would also have his generalexplanation displaceparticular ccountsofthe semanticfeatures fsome crucial words and phrases,suchas "voluntarily,"good," "it strue thatp." The dubious accounts all specify "applicability/ap-propriateness onditions"forproper use of the wordor phrase,aprocedureGrice feels s tooad hocto be philosophically nteresting.Among potential victimsof this housecleaning are the Austin-Searle felicity onditions on asserting, nd Grice implies that hisschemecan be extended to replace thefelicityonditionson direc-tives as well. But he is explicitlynoncommitalon the questionwhether he can displace the standard constitutive ules on suchspeech acts as "promising, swearing, accepting in marriage"(I.27)-evidently hard-core performatives.Ordinary representa-tives re at the centerof hisargument;which swhy tcan be appliedso well,as Pratt hows,to the theory f fiction.



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1090 ESSAY/REVIEWSGriceformulates set of assumptionsthat he thinks ll compe-

tent speakers bringto theirconversational ncounterswithotherpeople; standardsforconversational ehaviorthat ach participantassumes to be in forceunless there is contrary vidence. At themost general level these standardsare summarizedbywhatGricecalls the "Cooperative Principle" (abbreviated CP): "Make yourconversationalcontribution uch as is required, at the stage atwhich t occurs,bythe accepted purpose or directionof the talk-exchange in which you are engaged." This general principlecom-prisesthefollowing ules or "maxims":I. MaximsfQuantity1. Makeyour ontributions informatives is requiredfor hecurrent urposes f theexchange).2. Do not makeyourcontribution ore nformativehan srequired.II. Maxims fQualitySupermaxim:Make your ontributionnethat strue.1. Do not saywhatyoubelieve obe false.2. Do notsaythat orwhich ou ackadequateevidence.

III. MaximfRelationBe relevant.IV. MaximsfMannerSupermaxim: e perspicuous.1. Avoidobscurityf expression.2. Avoid mbiguity.3. Be briefavoidunnecessaryrolixity).4. Be orderly.130)It shouldbe notedthatthese rulesare all regulative,notconstitu-tive; theyare as apt to be honored in the breach as in the obser-vance. Grice is particularlynterested n how and why theymightbe breached deliberately:1. A speakermightecretlyiolate maxim,o as tomislead.2. He mightpt ut, r openly efuseocooperatet all likeGordonLiddy).3. He may efaced y clash fmaximse.g., clash fthefirstndsecondmaxims fQuality).4. He mayfloutmaxim; hat s,blatantlyail ofulfillt.(adaptedfromGrice 1975],49)

Anyofthe first hreeof theseviolationswillthreaten heCoopera-tivePrinciple CP); but the fourth, louting, an be consistentwithobservingthe CP. Therefore if an auditor who has no reason todoubt that he CP is inforce houldhearthespeakersaysomething



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M L N 1091that flouts a maxim of conversation,he can conclude that thespeaker meant somethingotherthanwhathe said. In the happycase the speakerwillhave related thething-said o thething-meantin such a way thatthe hearer can inferentially orkhisway fromthe one to the other. The speaker, thatis, will have exploitedhemaxim by flouting t, so as to implicate is meaning in an act ofconversationalmplicature.Implicatend implicaturere generictermsthat Gricecoinsto coversuch specificnotionsas imply,uggest,ndi-cate,mean nd [presumably] int,nsinuateGrice 1967), 11.4,V. 12].)An example of flouting-in thiscase flouting hefirstmaxim ofQuantity:

A is writing testimonialbouta pupilwho is a candidate ora philosophyob, andhis etter eadsas follows:DearSir,Mr. X'scommandfEnglishs excellent,ndhisattendancet tutorialsasbeenregular. ours, tc."Gloss:A can't e opting ut, incefhe wishedobe uncooperative,whywrite t all?He can't e unable, hroughgnorance,o saymore,since hisman shispupil;moreover, e knows hatmore nforma-tionthan his s wanted.He must, herefore,e wishingo impartinformationhich e isreluctantowrite own.This suppositionstenable nly n the ssumptionhathe thinkshatMr.X is nogoodatphilosophy.his,then,swhathe isimplicating.(160-61;Grice 1975],52)Grice blocksout theworking fimplicaturen somedetail,and afewofhis sub-topicshave an obvious interest or the literary ritic:irony,6metaphor,meiosis,hyperbole all flouting he firstmaximofQuality); ambiguity, bscurityfloutingmaximsof Manner).It is Pratt'sbeliefthat"the iterarypeech situation,"nvolving s

it does both "pre-paration"and "pre-selection," ends to protectliteraryworks gainstunintentionalmerely ncompetent)violationoftheCP and its ssociatedmaxims. This maybe putting oomuchfaith n the system.)And since authors seek out Audiences, thereader can safelytake it for granted that the author intendstohonor theCP. Taken together, othofthesepremisesmean that nliteraturenyviolation f maximwillmostikelye n exploitationf hatmaxim,n the ervicef ome mplicature.True or not, thisdoes nicelymake explicit he reasoningof generationsofneo-Coleridgeanor-ganicistcritics,who despite all appearances have presumed theirAuthor to be infallible, nd theirText a seamless whole.)6 Fora detailed nalysisf rony rom heperspectivesfSearle ndGrice, eeBrownforthcoming).



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1092 ESSAY/REVIEWSAlthoughtheremaybe doubts about someof Pratt's ssumptionshere,mostreaderswillbe impressedby theway shebuildson theman elaboratebut tightly-constructedheory f literarymplicature,particularly or the novel. It is easier to recommendthan to sum-marize her intricate rgument.Citingexamples from European,Americanand Latin American fiction, ratt recognizesand illus-tratesall kinds of implicatureby the implied author, variously nharmonywith nd at deliberatecross-purposeswith fullrangeofimplicaturesby the narrator. t also embraces the "linguistic ub-versiveness" fmodernfiction,whichexploitstheCP in extraordi-

narilydifficult ays.These concludingsections re among thebestin thebook.In the space remainingI want to compare an uncontroversialaspectof Pratt's ccountof fictionwith ome proposals putforwardby John Searle in "The Logical Status of Fictional Discourse"(Searle [1975c])-an importantworkthatPratthas overlooked.Thisaspect is not centralto her argument,so it may seem beside thepointto single t out. But the assumptions nvolvedare shared bymostother literary ritics, nd theymaybe misleading.And theyaren't reallyconsistentwith ome of Pratt's therassumptions,norwiththe Griceanframework.In the course of her analysisof the possible relationsbetweennarratorial nd authorial mplicatures, ratt onsidersthe simplest,"unmarked"case, in whichtheauthorendorsesrather hanunder-cuts theimplicaturesmade by thenarrator.The very implestver-sion (and there are others)of this simplest ase involves narratoror fictional peaker who is simply the fictional ounterpart per-sona) of the author" (208). That is, even in the simplest ase Prattwill "distinguish etweenthe fictional peaker of a workof litera-ture and its real-world peaker,the author" (173).7This is notan unusual maneuver; thesedays t s thenormalone.Wayne Booth, whom Pratt gnores,confirmed ts propriety omeyearsago; and thisyear happens to be the centenaryof EdwardDowden's sharp distinctionbetween the real author of GeorgeEliot's novels and the "second-self" voice that speaks in them(Booth [1961], 71). Althoughthe propositionmust constantly erepeated,ithas long been agreed that"The one who peaks in thenarrative)s notthe onewhowritesinreallife) nd the onewhowritesis not theone who s" (Barthes [1966], 261).

7 The same distinction s preservedby Brown(1974) and Brownand Steinmann(forthcoming)n theirown applicationsof Searle and Griceto literary heory.



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M L N 1093Of course this has notalwaysbeen recognized.Mrs.Barbauld, anaif n manyways, was inclined to thinkthat the narrator n TomJoneswas Henry Fielding, not (as Booth has it) "Henry Fielding"(Barbauld [1804]). HenryJames,notusually naivereader,thoughtthat thenarrator n AnthonyTrollope's novels was AnthonyTrol-lope himself. n fact, he was greatly discouraged" byTrollope'sconstantntrusions,nwhichhe flauntedhispersonaland arbitrarycontrol,as novelistover what-happens-nextJames [1972], 30-1,175). By example and preceptJamesencouraged modern authorsto resort to personaeof various kinds, but he evidentlydid notassume apersona o be theaxiomaticbase ofanytheory fnarrative.

Nor did E.M. Forster,who could easily dentify henarrativevoicewith"thewriter"Forster 1927], 123-4, 127-8).JohnSearle, thougha modernreader, has notbeen schooled inmoderncriticism; e evidently akes it forgrantedthatsometimesthe author of a novel can speak in his own, unmediated voice. In"The Logic of FictionalDiscourse" he contraststwo briefprosepassages,one written yEileen Shanahan in a newsreportforTheNew YorkTimes, he other writtenby Iris Murdoch to open hernovel TheRed and theGreen.Both passages consist of declarativesentences; Searle's point s thatonlyShanahan uses hersentencetoperform he llocutionaryct ofasserting:Murdochuttershersen-tence (and he takes it that t is she who speaks) onlytopretend operform n assertion, nlytoimitate he act ofasserting. hanahanintendsherutterance o countas an assertion, nd sheintends o beheld to account under the various constitutive ules on assertions(that she believe what she asserts,that she be "in a position toprovideevidence or reasonsfor the truth f theexpressedpropo-sition," tc.). Though Murdoch "utters"her sentence,she intendsherutterance o count notas an assertionbut as an imitation fanassertion;and she does not intendto be held to account under therules on assertions. Her utterance is withoutreal illocutionaryforce.This argument t first lanceresembles hatofOhmann (197 la)regarding"literature."But there are two differences: earle setsthe term"literature" o one side, as being essentiallyndefinable,unlike the category"fiction";and Ohmann makes the usual as-sumptionthatthespeakerin theunmarkedcase willbe an "imagi-naryspeaker" (14), not the authorhimself.Searle goes on to suggestthatnotall thespeech acts n a work offictionneed be fictional pretended, mimetic) n thisway. Fromtime to time the author, if he does speak himself,may referto



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1094 ESSAY/REVIEWSaspects oftherealworld such as the geographyofLondon) inwaysdisciplined by the speech-act rules on referenceand predication;he may also make assertions bout life for which he is willing o beheld to account. (This is different rom mplicating uch assertionsthroughthe devices of indirectnarration,which, s Pratt hows, salso a possibility.)n such a case the workof fictionwillnotbe all ofa piece: some representative peech acts willbe real, othersfictional(pretended); and the readerwillbe expectedto count them as theycome.StanleyFish noted in thisournal a year ago thatSearle therebygives up the effort o define a genre "fiction," ven as he earlierdeclined to try to define "literature"Fish [1976], 1015-16). WhatSearle offers s not a theory f fictional iscourse, but a theoryofdiscretefictional cts. That will not satisfy iterary ritics,who usu-allywanta good gestalt.Thus two main differencesdistinguish Searle's speech-act ac-count of fictionfrom Pratt's: (1) Searle leaves open the old-fashionedpossibilityhatthe authormayon occasion be telling hestoryhimself,whereasPrattmakesthe moreusual assumptionthatthe narratorwill always be a fictionhimself, t the very east apersonadoubling fortheauthor. (2) Therefore for Searle it is con-ceptually possible forthe narrative o be a patchworkof fictionaland non-fictional tterances;whereas for Pratt he whole narrativewillnecessarily e one fiction.Pratt's standard) assumption s attractive ecause it guaranteesthe unityof the text.But it carries a strong prioriflavor, nd itdoes not followfromher interestn the affinities etween naturaldiscourse and literary arrative.To adapt one of herown examples(which she borrows from Labov [1972]), the conventions f ritualinsults "sounding") among black adolescents nvolve an overt sus-pension of illocutionary orce,but not (evidently) he fictionaliza-tion of the speaker. It is not the sounder but the sound that isfictional;not thespeakerbut thespeech act. The same can be truewhen an adultmakes up a story nd tells t to a child.Evenwhenhewrites t down.8 What Trollope was up to may often have beenmuch like that.Notthatwe ever hear"themanspeaking o us withhis real voice . .a voice from the very inmost soul of the genuine Burns," or

8 For a different iew, of the case of A.A. Milne, see Window (1963).



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M L N 1095Trollope, or whomever. Thus Matthew Arnold [1880] in one ofhis less guarded moments,glorifyingsincerity.") f course in allour encounters we wear a disguise; all self-presentationsre self-improvements.And of course we compound thatdisguise when wewrite. "The one who writes s not the one who is." But since thisfactor s universal, t can forthemoment be factoredout.Which leaves us with two competing speech-actmodels for fic-tional discourse. Because Searle's model presupposes less thanPratt's, t s morecomprehensive, nd less likely o distort he com-parisonof any two texts.9However,whetherfiction-writersre ever well advised to tell thestoryntheir wnvoice (or whatmustpass fortheir wnvoiceafterthe factoring-outmentioned above), remains a different uestion,and a question of taste.One last point: Pratt holds that n her simplestunmarked casethe speaker willbe understood toobserve the CP and its associatedmaxims.But there s one maxim thatomniscientnarrators eem toviolate all thetime,the second maxim of Quality: "Do notsaythatforwhichyoulack adequate evidence." (This has itscounterpartnone of Searle's preparatory onditionson assertions.)Whenever anomniscientnarrator ellsus what some character hought, herewillbe the obvious question,"How does he knowthat?"If, as Smith [1971], 273), has suggested, hird-person-narrativenovels are tobe counted as imitationhroniclesrimitationiographies,there are two possibleanswers:either 1) the fictional hronicler/biographer is supposed within the fiction to have access to anunusual fundof retrospective videnceabout the characters' tatesof mind (e.g., interviews, iaries),or else (2) he is supposed to befudging wildly,faking t all-an equally real but equally unusualpossibility.By the same token, no narrator of what Pratt calls"real-worldnarrativedisplay texts"would readilybe thought o bekeeping the second maxim of Quality if his narrative ncludedmuch detailed assertion about largely naccessable material, e.g.,the consciousness of another person. (As in the Bert-Lance-Taj-Mahal example cited earlier.) Which is one of the reasons thatmany people gave fordisbelievingmuchof thecolorfuldetail"re-

9Consider,or xample, alvinTrillin's omic Novel"Runestruck,s contrastedwithhis comic ocialcriticismegularlyerializednTheNewYorker.t is easytobelieve hat rillinells oth tories,nthefirstaseunder waiver fthe peech-actrules n assertions.



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1096 ESSAY/REVIEWSported" by Woodward and BernsteinnTheFinalDays, nd which swhy more scrupulous chroniclers nd biographers wind up hedg-ing: "Jonesmust ave thought hatp ... no doubt e looked forwardto x with pleasure."Some novels mayin fact mitatechronicles and biographies,asSmith uggests.But omniscientarratives re different,n so openlydisregarding he second maxim of Quality. n fact,when an omni-scientnarrator,whether uthor or persona, eems to make an unevi-denced assertion, he reader can usuallyconclude thathe is (amongother things) xploitinghe econdmaxim f Qualityn the serviceofsome implicature.And what will be the standard content of such an implicature?That the assertions re not real but pretended; that as Trollope soloudly nsistedfor his own part) the narrator nd reader "are only'makingbelieve' " (James 1972], 30).

UniversityfMinnesota

REFERENCESArnold, Matthew. 1880. "General Introduction" o TheEnglish oets,1, ed.T.H. Ward. Rpt. 235-260 as "The Studyof Poetry" n: Matthew r-nold'sEssays n Criticism.ondon: Dent, 1964.Austin,J.L. 1962. How toDo ThingswithWords. ambridge, Mass.: HarvardUniv. Press.Rpt. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1965.Barbauld, Anna Laetitia. 1804. Excerpt from"A Biographical Account ofSamuel Richardson" in The CorrespondencefSamuelRichardson, ;258-60 in: Novelists n theNovel,ed. Miriam Allott.London: Rout-ledge, 1959.Barthes, Roland. 1966. "Introductiona lPanalyse tructuraledes recits."Communications,. Tr. by Lionel Duisit: "An Introduction to theStructuralAnalysis of Narrative."New Literary istory, (1975),237-272.Bates, Elizabeth. 1976. Language and Context: he AcquisitionfPragmatics.New York: Academic Press.Beardsley, Monroe C. 1970. The Possibility f Criticism. etroit: WayneState Univ. Press.Booth, Wayne C. 1961. The Rhetoric fFiction.Chicago: Univ. of ChicagoPress.



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M L N 1097Brown,Robert L., Jr. 1974. "Intentions nd theContextsof Poetry."Cen-trum, , 56-66.(forthcoming). The Pragmaticsof Verbal Irony."

and MartinSteinmann,Jr. forthcoming). NativeReaders ofFiction: A Speech-Actand GenreApproach toDefiningLiterature."In: What s Literature?,d. Paul Hernadi. Bloomington: IndianaUniv. Press.Bruner,Jerome.1975. "The Ontogenesis of Speech Acts."JournalfChildLanguage 2, 1-19.. 1976. "Psychology and the Image of Man." Times iteraryup-plement, 7 December, 1589-91.Cole, Peter, and J.L. Morgan, eds. 1975. SpeechActs Syntax nd Semantics,3). New York: Academic Press.Eaton, Marcia. 1974. "Speech Acts:A Bibliography."Centrum,, 57-72.Fish,StanleyE. 1973. "How Ordinary sOrdinaryLanguage?" NewLiteraryHistory,, 41-54.. 1976. "How to Do Things with Austin and Searle: Speech ActTheory and LiteraryCriticism."MLN, 91, 983-1025.Forster,E.M. 1927. AspectsftheNovel.New York: Harcourt.Garvey,Catherine. 1975. "Requests and Responses in Children'sSpeech."Journal fChildLanguage,2, 41-63.

Grice,H. Paul. 1967. Logicand Conversation.ypescript seven lectures;only ecture I published: Grice 1975).. 1975. "Logic and Conversation." 41-58 in: Cole and Morgan.Hirsch,David H. 1976. "Speech Acts or Fluid Language."Journal fLiter-arySemantics, , 15-30.Hymes, Dell. 1971. "Competence and Performance n LinguisticTheory."3-28 in: LanguageAcquisition: odels ndMethods,d. ReniraHuxleyand ElisabethIngram. London: Academic Press.. 1972. "Models of the Interactionof Language and SocialLife." 35-71 in: Directionsn Sociolinguistics:heEthnographyfCom-munication,d. JohnJ.Gumperz and Dell Hymes. New York: Holt.Iser,Wolfgang.1975. "The Reality fFiction:A FunctionalistApproachtoLiterature."NewLiterary istory, , 7-38.Jakobson,Roman,and PeterBogatyrev.1931. "On theBoundaryBetweenStudies of Folklore and Literature,"tr. Herbert Eagle. 91-93 in:ReadingsnRussianPoetics: ormalistndStructuralistiews, d. Ladis-lavMatejka and Krystyna omorska.Cambridge,Mass.: M I T Press,1971.James, Henry. 1972. Theory fFiction, d. James E. Miller,Jr. Lincoln:Univ. of Nebraska Press.Labov, William.1972. Language nthe nnerCity: tudiesnthe lackEnglishVernacular. hiladelphia: Univ. of PennsylvaniaPress.Martinich,A.P. 1975. "Sacraments nd Speech Acts."HeythropJournal,6,289-303, 405-17.



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1098 ESSAY/REVIEWSOhmann, Richard. 197 a. "Speech Actsand theDefinition fLiterature."PhilosophyndRhetoric,, 1-19.

. 197 lb. "Speech, Action, and Style." 241-254 in: Literary tyle:ASymposium,d. SeymorChatman. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.Searle, John R. 1965. "What is a Speech Act?" 221-39 in: PhilosophynAmerica,d. Max Black. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press.. 1969. Speech Acts: An Essay in thePhilosophyof Language. Cam-bridge,Eng.: CambridgeUniv. Press.. 1975a. "A Classification of Illocutionary Acts." Language andSociety,, 1-23.. 1975b. "A Taxonomy of Illocutionary Acts." 344-69 in: Lan-guage,Mind,andKnowledgeMinnesota tudiesn thePhilosophyfSci-ence, 7), ed. Keith Gunderson. Minneapolis: Univ. of MinnesotaPress.. 1975c. "The Logical Status of Fictional Discourse." New Liter-aryHistory,, 319-32.Smith,Barbara Herrnstein.1971. "Poetry s Fiction."NewLiterary istory,2, 259-81.Stampe, Dennis W. 1975. "Meaning and Truth in the Theory of SpeechActs." 1-39 in: Cole and Morgan.

Traugott,Elizabeth C. 1973. "GenerativeSemanticsand the Concept ofLiteraryDiscourse."Journal fLiteraryemantics,, 5-22.Turner, Roy. 1974. "Words, Utterances and Activities." 197-215 in:Ethnomethodology: elected Readings, ed. Roy Turner. Har-mondsworth, ng.: Penguin.Twining,William,and David Miers. 1976. How toDo ThingsWithRules.London: Weidenfeld.Verschueren, Jef. 1976. SpeechAct Theory:A ProvisionalBibliography.Indiana Univ. LinguisticsClub.Window, Harvey C. 1963. "Paradoxical Persona: The Hierarchy ofHeroism in Winnie-the-Pooh."-12 in: ThePooh Perplex:A FreshmanCasebook, yFrederickC. Crews. New York: Dutton.

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Beyond Speech Act Theory - Hancher Review of Pratt